We’ve all answered the question at some point about those famous individuals, dead or alive, that we would most like to have dinner with if given the opportunity. Imagine then being a writer, or an aspiring writer, and getting to spend an entire week with one of the twentieth century’s greatest literary talents—and not realizing it. This is the premise of poet and novelist Jay Parini’s 2020 book, Borges and Me: An Encounter.
In 1970, Parini had received his undergraduate degree from Lafayette College and moved back into his parents’ home in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Surveying his options of either staying in Scranton or heading off to Vietnam, he settled on a third option of leaving the United States altogether and pursuing graduate studies in Scotland, at the University of St. Andrews, with the goal of being a professional writer, despite, he admits, “no demonstrable talents or experience.” Shaken as many of his generation were by the heavy toll exacted by the war in Vietnam, he sought to escape the “safe, simple, unquestioning life” and the “fatal lethargy of ‘normal’ life” in northeastern Pennsylvania.
Dodging both his mother and the local draft board, Parini arrived in Scotland with all of his anxieties still intact. The war still weighed heavily on his mind, exacerbated by the forwarded draft letters he received and the fact that his best friend from back home was actually in Vietnam, and he struggled to sleep and find his footing both as a student and writer.
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